THE CONFLICT IN IRAQ: THE PRESIDENT; BUSH SAYS IRAQIS AREN'T YET ABLE TO QUELL REBELS

By DAVID E. SANGER and RICHARD W. STEVENSON

Published: December 21, 2004

President Bush acknowledged Monday that the United States had achieved only ''mixed'' success in training Iraqi troops to secure the country, and said that it was ''unacceptable'' that some Iraqi units had fled as soon as they faced hostile fire.

With the first elections in Iraq six weeks away, Mr. Bush's public criticism of how the Iraqis had performed reflected mounting concern, voiced from the White House, the Pentagon and Capitol Hill, that the strategy for training 125,000 Iraqi forces to secure the country is failing.

On Sunday, Senator John W. Warner, the Virginia Republican who serves as the chairman of the Armed Services Committee, said a recent trip to the country convinced him that the Iraqi forces were ''bottom level'' and still had no effective leadership 20 months after the fall of Saddam Hussein.

Several other Republicans, and many Democrats, have been highly critical of Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld for his conduct of the war and how he dealt with questions from soldiers two weeks ago about the absence of effective armor to protect them from improvised explosives. But Mr. Bush used his news conference to express confidence in his secretary of defense. ''I know Secretary Rumsfeld's heart,'' Mr. Bush said. ''Beneath that rough and gruff, no-nonsense demeanor is a good human being who cares deeply about the military and deeply about the grief that war causes.'' [Page A19.]

At his news conference in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building on Monday morning, expected to be his last before he leaves for vacation at Camp David and then his Texas ranch, Mr. Bush made no effort to argue with Senator Warner's assessment of the Iraqi security forces. He said that in a meeting last week with the two military leaders in charge of the 148,000 American troops in Iraq, Gen. John P. Abizaid and Gen. George W. Casey Jr., he learned that the problem extended well beyond shortcomings in training.

''They've got some generals in place and they've got foot soldiers in place, but the whole command structure necessary to have a viable military is not in place,'' Mr. Bush said. ''And so they're going to spend a lot of time and effort on achieving that objective.'' [Excerpts, Page A16.]

He also acknowledged that ''no question about it, the bombers are having an effect'' in sowing terror among Iraqis and said that they were trying to shake the will of Iraqis and of Americans who saw scenes of the resulting carnage on their television sets almost nightly. ''Car bombs that destroy young children or car bombs that indiscriminately bomb in religious sites are effective propaganda tools,'' he said.

Nevertheless, Mr. Bush said he would not let the continued violence deter him from his stated goal of bringing democracy to Iraq, declaring that ''we must meet the objective, which is to help the Iraqis defend themselves, and at the same time have a political process to go forward.''

Taken together, Mr. Bush's comments amounted to his broadest acknowledgement yet that rebuilding Iraq's security forces, a central task in remaking Iraq, had run into severe difficulties -- problems he resisted discussing during his re-election campaign.

The numbers alone released by the administration tell a story of a training program that has slowed to a halt. The State Department's weekly assessment of Iraqi security forces shows that the number of newly trained troops has stayed level since early November at about 114,000, and that more of those troops are being channeled to the police, to try to restore order to the streets of major cities.

Administration officials acknowledged that it was a measure of how bad things had become that an assassin photographed while killing three election workers on Sunday on a street in Baghdad did not even feel the need to cover his face.

Asked about a ''move away from democracy'' by President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, Mr. Bush conspicuously passed up an opportunity to criticize Mr. Putin for cracking down on civil liberties and centralizing power. Though Mr. Bush's aides have been highly critical of Mr. Putin, with some of them reassessing their earlier, favorable impressions of his intentions, Mr. Bush sidestepped the issue, reminding reporters that ''Vladimir Putin and I have got a good personal relationship.''

''It's important for Russia and the United States to have the kind of relationship where if we disagree with decisions, we can do so in a friendly and positive way,'' he said.

Mr. Bush also declined to state his position in an internal debate within his own administration about whether the United States should be promoting a change of leadership in North Korea and Iran. He said again that ''diplomacy must be the first choice'' in ending the nuclear standoffs with both nations.

But he acknowledged that in Iran's case, ''we're relying upon others, because we've sanctioned ourselves out of influence with Iran.''

He repeated his warnings to Iran and Syria not to interfere with Iraq's coming election. ''When I said the other say that I expect these countries to honor the political process in Iraq without meddling, I meant it,'' he said. ''And hopefully, those governments heard what I said.''